CPJ promotes press freedom worldwide and defends the right of journalists to report the news without fear of reprisal.
Each year, the world’s leaders are invited to New York for the United Nations General Assembly, where they are given a platform to speak freely and openly. But while the leaders of many countries enjoy this privilege, their journalists back home are jailed, threatened, attacked, or even killed for reporting the news.
(From the top, scenes from Egypt, Russia, China).
Cartoonist Badiucao draws attention to a Guangdong woman believed to have been detained for her role in designing and mailing T-shirts showing support for detained human rights lawyer Wang Yu. More.
News assistants, or zhongmi (which literally means “Chinese secretaries”), are Chinese citizens working for foreign journalists in China. They play a number of roles including monitoring news leads, conducting research, translating materials, and arranging interviews, as well as acting as cultural liaisons who can explain social and political phenomena to journalists who may not be fluent in Chinese or have not long been in the country. As a former China correspondent for Agence France-Presse told the Asia Society, “Most foreign bureaus would be nothing without their Chinese news assistants.”
But their role is a precarious one, and they must learn to straddle the expectations of their employers and the pressures of China’s security apparatus.
Given the Chinese government’s increasingly stringent control over the press–as evidenced by China being the world’s worst jailer of journalists, according to CPJ’s most recent annual prison census –journalists in China are often subject to surveillance and harassment by the police. But, unlike foreign correspondents, who are usually protected by their nationality and risk being expelled from China as the most severe form of retaliation, harassment of Chinese news assistants can mean jail time. Recently, Zhang Miao of German weekly Die Zeit was imprisoned for more than nine months.
Image: REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha
Convincing potential sources to share information and publishing independent journalism on social media or with the help of crowd-funding are a few of the practices that are likely to suffer under a pair of new Chinese laws–one passed, one still in draft form–local journalists tell CPJ.
On July 1, the Chinese government announced that it had passed the National Security Law. The legislation’s definition of national security is all-encompassing, covering everything from politics to finance, energy, food, religion, culture, as well as cyberspace and outer space. The wording of the law is such that nearly any activity in Chinese society could be construed as a national security concern.
Image: Jason Lee
The third edition of “Decoding the Chinese Internet: A Glossary of Political Slang” is available today for pay-what-you-want. Classic memes, created by Chinese netizens to counter censorship, are joined by 17 new terms in an improved, image-rich format.
China Digital Times maintains a wiki of subversive Chinese Internet language, an essential element of China’s “resistance discourse” which counters state propaganda. This Grass-Mud Horse Lexicon is named after the unofficial mascot of Chinese netizenry, an alpaca whose name sounds nearly the same as a serious profanity.
In this third edition of “Decoding the Chinese Internet,” we have added both new coinages and iconic turns of phrase. Organized by broad categories, “Decoding the Chinese Internet” guides readers through the raucous world of China’s online resistance discourse. Students of Mandarin will gain insight into word play and learn terms that are key to understanding Chinese Internet language. But no knowledge of Chinese is needed to appreciate the creative leaps netizens make in order to keep talking.
Available in PDF format for pay-what-you-want. All proceeds support the work of China Digital Times. Thanks for downloading!
China sought to maintain a tight grip on information about a capsized cruise ship on Wednesday, even as hopes dimmed for the hundreds of people aboard who remained missing and as new questions emerged about the vessel and about the captain’s decision to sail into a storm.
In a show of openness, the Chinese government allowed a handful of reporters to visit the scene of rescue efforts on Wednesday on the Yangtze River, where the ship with 456 passengers and crew overturned during a violent storm more than a day earlier.
But the time of transparency was brief. Police checkpoints prevented access to the river and movement through parts of the nearby town of Jianli. Hotels were told not to accept journalists unless they had registered at a media center run by local propaganda officials. Likewise, the police blocked journalists’ access to local hospitals.
Read more at the New York Times
Image: Aly Song
China’s Great Cannon: New weapon to suppress free speech online
China, rated as the eighth most censored country in the world, in a report released by CPJ today, has long had a strong line of defense against free speech online. ItsGolden Shield Project, launched by the Ministry of Public Security in 1998, relies on a combination of technology and personnel to control what can be expressed and accessed behind the Great Firewall of China.
To strike at its enemies the accusation, very often made by victims of an attack, has been that China uses a mix of official and unofficial teams of computer adepts (read: hackers) to stifle overseas sites the government feels pose a threat. China has always denied the accusations. Google “China denies hacking” for a seemingly unending list of accusations and denials.
Image: REUTERS/Stringer
Chinese journalist Gao Yu sentenced to seven years
A Beijing court today convicted Chinese journalist Gao Yu of leaking state secrets and handed her a seven-year sentence, according to news reports. Gao, a freelance journalist, has written about Chinese politics, the economy, and social trends for Chinese media in Hong Kong and overseas. She was arrested in April 2014, a few months before the 25th anniversary of the crackdown on demonstrators in Tiananmen Square.
